To walk the vineyards, listen to the whispering of the harvesters, perceive the classic smell of the wineries and, even more pleasant, to enjoy the plenitude of a good wine, can take us to the beginning of so many life stories whose main characters were men who arrived at this country without knowing that they would have an outstanding place in the growth of a country.

All these sensations we feel when we get to know the story of a family, three generations that have given a name to fine wine and olive oil: Tittarelli.

Today, Tittarelli V.O.S.A. is part of the ECIPSA Group, completing the primary exploitation of vineyards and olive tree plantations that the company has owned for years in the province of San Juan , through the production of fine wines for the international market and first quality olive oil, also for export.

His name was Enrico, back in the 1900, he left his name, his land, the blue waters of the Adriatic , but he was getting a place in the world.

Enrique Tittarelli was born in 1882 in Jesi, Ancona , in the Adriatic region of Las Marcas, Italy . There he was a poor laborer who, like many others, had to emigrate to survive. When the century was beginning, this seventeen-year-old Italian boy disembarked in Buenos Aires and, knowing that only agriculture was familiar to him, he found out that Mendoza had welcomed other Europeans who worked the vineyards. He headed in that direction.

One of them was don Bautista Gerónimo Gargantini, who emigrated from Switzerland to Argentina in 1883, knew the secrets of the vineyard and knew how to obtain its most precious product: wine.

Together with Pascual Toso and Juan Giol, Gargantini managed, in a few years, to found the best known wineries in Mendoza at the time. Later, Bautista Gerónimo decided to go back to Europe with his family, but one of his children, Bautista, educated in that continent, asked to keep part of the assets. His father sold to Giol the biggest part and left his son an establishment in Rivadavia, in that province.

At this point these two names are joined, because it is Bautista Gargantini who called Enrique Tittarelli to manage his property and winery, plus what he acquired in those years. He did so with such responsibility and dedication that he could save up his own capital.

In 1909 Enrique married Teresa Bombadre, who was a member of another family that had arrived from the italic peninsula and had settled in Maipú, also in Mendoza . Seven children were born in this marriage, whose names recall that uprooting when he was still a teenager: Pacífico, Américo, Mario, José, Arturo, Italia and Colomba. All of them showed their talent in the arts, especially Italia, who exposed her work in different points of the country.

Remains of the buildings that Enrique built when he first arrived in this land still exist. One example of that is the warehouse with a manger and the retable on the ground floor, because he thought that was the place for the animals in winter. He was not aware that in this latitude winter snow was very occasional.

Beginnings of the Tittarelli Company

 With the money he got together, Enrique Tittarelli soon became a land owner. 1915 was the key year. He bought three hectares in Los Campamentos, Rivadavia, and there he grew vineyards; then he bought more land and planted olive trees, and later he built a winery, while his company kept growing adding another winery and more land, with the business name “Olives, Wineries and Vineyards Enrique Tittarelli S.R.L.”.

The isotype Enrique Tittarelli chose for his wines was a circle with a horse on a star. The horse, the strength; the star, fortune.

That place is also connected to another aspect of history. Los Campamentos, together with Reducción and Libertad, are places which took there names because the aborigines were taken there after the military campaign to recover land and expand the limits of cultivatable land.

Although the progress of the business was more and more noticeable, Enrique’s determination and dedication drove him to olive growing; he reached the amount of 150 thousand olive trees, and other 300 thousand in seedbeds, ready to be planted, supplying not only Mendoza’s producers (once he sold 120,000 plants to Gargantini), but also all the country, and even Chile.

His grandson Enrique says that most of his knowledge he got from his own experience and observation. His father remembers, for example, that the grandfather noticed that hens ate olives and, wherever they left a stone under the ground, a plant would grow.

It was so that, without methodology, the practice of trial and error allowed him to boost an agro-industrial exploitation that later became an important contribution to the Argentinean economy.
For all these reasons he is considered a pioneer in olive growing in Argentina .
Enrique also showed his love for nature in his own home, a beautiful house that still stands, where he cultivated up to 30 varieties of roses.

In 1952 his wife Teresa passed away, and he decided to share his big fortune among his children, who had worked with him during the previous years. Since then he settled in Buenos Aires for health reasons. He traveled regularly to Mendoza to visit the cultivated fields he had put so much hope and sacrifice into. During one of those trips, on October 19 th 1962, his life came to an end.